News

Brighton Bandstand now in Buxton!

Despite the usual wet and windy weather, the famous 1884 bandstand on Brighton sea front was successfully dismantled and moved to our works about ten days ago. It looks a mess but it won’t do by the time we’ve finished with it! The roof design is unique and so different from the usual Victorian designs that I’m going to do a little article on it on this site sometime soon.

Paint analysis reveals 40 old coats of paint!

All the castings are big  - the columns are 1.25 tonnes apiece - and braced together so rigidly that they were immune to anything the last 120 years could throw at them, the odd hurricane included. The balustrades, gutters and ‘frilly bits’ are in a mess but the main components look good. More to follow…….

One coat of paint and much crisper castings.

The column capitals were made in eight sections and pinned on afterwards. The design is a curious mixture!

Casting without patterns!

Casting in metal can be tricky at the best of times but at least we usually have casting patterns to work from - basically wooden models of whatever we want to create. Over the last month, we’ve had to make a range of large architectural castings without any patterns at all! The projects involved replicating existing castings in a Burnley park and on the facade of an ASDA store in Co Durham, but the original suppliers and their patterns had long ago disappeared.

Using only cleaned-up old castings, we’ve managed to mould and cast new columns, spandrels, beams and pendant posts, a great credit to Steve Thorpe and his team in our aluminium foundry.

Pendant column and 3500mm crossbeam - cast without patterns

 Another steam locomotive takes shape

In a rather cluttered corner of our erecting shop, the once derelict and rusting hulk of a World War 1 trenches locomotive is now well on the way to full restoration. Built by Kerr Stuart in Stoke in 1917, it was sent to France and went to work in a quarry when the war was over. It then spent nearly fifty years doing absolutely nothing before being bought by a preservation group. A new boiler has been ordered and it is hoped to have the loco in regular use at the Moseley Railway Trust’s Apedale, Staffs HQ by late 2010.

Just the boiler, tanks, cab, fittings......to go!

A six-wheeled 2ft gauge loco weighing about 9 tonnes, No 3014 was built for the network of behind-the-lines railways ferrying ammunition, supplies and drinking water for the artillery and infantry in WW1

The morning of 23rd June dawned clear and dry, which was just as well for the crowd assembled to launch the bronze map of the Waterloo area of Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. Unveiled by Council Leader Roy Oldham, this large bronze is the second in a series of 18 covering all the wards in the borough.

Leander are responsible for design and historical research as well as making the maps and their oak frames, and installing them on site.

The Royal Navy training centre, HMS Collingwood at Fareham, has a cast iron barrel-vaulted entrance canopy made by the renowned Walter McFarlane, Saracen Foundry, Glasgow in the 1860s. Although the canopy is a true semi-circular vault, the glazing is made up of hundreds of small pieces of flat glass.

Working for Britannia Ltd, Alton, Hants, Leander have restored the structure at their Buxton works and it was re-erected in April 2008. Photos to follow…

Late last year we sculpted a full Royal Marines insignia, cast it in bronze and delivered it to Port Stanley in the Falklands for a Royal Marines Memorial. Another highly-polished casting has just been completed for a memorial in Crete and a third is under way for the National Arboretum in Lichfield. Other bronze memorials are underway for the Manchester Regt in France and for the Kings Regiment. We take great pride in our military memorial work, so much so that our Steve Hoyle volunteered to drive to France last year to install a memorial for the 1st Buckinghamshire Battalion.

Work is just starting on an unusual project with sculptress Denise Dutton. Denise has designed and is creating a range of architectural features - balustrated, gates and grilles - for a major house refurbishment. Denise’s wax originals will be moulded and cast in bronze at our Tanat Foundry in Wales, patinated and installed at the house by our own site team.

For several years the Transport Trust have planned a major series of plaques commemorating sites of historic interest connected with roads, railways and canals. The plaque design has evolved slowly and the prototype was due for completion by Easter 2008. As the visual shows, it uses bright colours but restrained typography. The prototype will be followed by a batch of 5 for sites in Derbyshire before beginning the coverage of other counties.